


Car Crash Hearts

by ganseyboii



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: I love you prompts, M/M, One Shot, Sorta an AU, like it fits with what happens in canon but it's a different take on how their relationship started, pynch - Freeform, ronan lynch is a car crash and adam is chronically tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganseyboii/pseuds/ganseyboii
Summary: From an "i love you" prompts list: casually, as if you don’t mean it, trying like hell not to mean it.Adam Parrish doesn't have any time for love and Ronan Lynch is spinning off the tack, wheels skidding on unforgiving pavement. Maybe sometimes, things work out.





	Car Crash Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> for my darling dearest avery whom i adore <3

Adam Parrish was a boy running out of time.

Adam didn't have time to fall in love. Meeting Blue was a fluke, an accidental happenstance. Adam was juggling three jobs, his valedictorian position, and hunting for lost kings with Gansey. He didn't have time to factor someone new into his life, someone who would demand extra time from him, someone who would expect things of him. Adam had enough expectations of himself without someone else peering over his shoulder.

Adam Parrish also did not have time for people to fall in love with him. College was fast approaching and Adam didn't need anyone influencing the one thing he had worked so hard to accomplish. Deciding which college to commit to was his choice. His. He didn't want anyone attempting to influence it. For the first time in his life, Adam would be gloriously, unabashedly free. And no one was going to pull that from his grasp.

Ronan Lynch was spinning out. He felt like someone had snipped the breaks on his dead father's BMW and he was slipping sliding across the pavement. Holding the scissors was a boy with sepia blue eyes and the uncanny ability to look exactly like he knew whatever secrets lay dormant in Ronan's fanciful brain.

Of course, there was no way Adam could know Ronan's secrets because if he did, there would be no way for Adam to tolerate his presence. Everyone within Henrietta city-limits knew Adam Parrish was driven and determined and not to be swayed by ideas as fanciful as love. For now, Ronan was content to kneecap his relationship with Adam as friendship, even if he wasn't too keen on showing it himself. To show Adam friendship would be to be vulnerable, something Lynches didn’t do too well.

"What's cooking, trailerboy?" Ronan bit out. Somewhere in his mind he was kicking himself because that was a shitty thing to say. Gansey's face reflected his inner thoughts, which helped him push aside any regret. Adam, to his credit, didn't even blink. He held up a fan of tarot cards for Ronan to see.

"Studying."

"What, you need to study hokey magic tricks now, plus all the shit you gotta know for school?"

"You do realize I'm learning this shit for you, right? The cards let us talk with the ley line, so we can figure out what's going on and keep you from getting gutted by nightmares every night!"

Rather than open his mouth and shove his foot deeper down his throat, Ronan walked away. He felt dirty. Adam had so much to focus on, he didn't need to be dragged into Ronan's dreamer crap.

Sitting in his room, letting Chainsaw nip at his fingers, Ronan made a decision. He was going to help.

\---

"What are you doing here, Lynch?" Adam's tired voice asked. Ronan stood in his doorway, looking like the personification of a sharp retort.

"I'm here to help, dumbass."

Adam watched, dumbfounded as Ronan folded himself inside of his matchbox apartment and made himself comfortable on Adam's bed.

Ronan didn't help.

Or maybe, he thought he was, but all he did was sit on Adam's bed, snarked about the room, and conjugated a few Latin verbs.

It wasn't a week of Ronan's presence did Adam realize he was helping. In his own chaotic Ronan way, Ronan seemed to dissolve the stress Adam felt. Whenever Ronan was in the room, he felt electric, wide awake and fully charged. He didn't feel stressed about the three quizzes he had the next day. Every time he began to spiral, Ronan would shove down his fears with a stupidly simple solution.

"What are you so pinched about?" Ronan asked. Adam was in the middle of a breakdown. His head in his hands, he sat, just barely containing the shaking of his body.

"I don't know, Ronan, maybe it's just that I have two quizzes in Latin, an oral exam in English on the book I haven't read yet, work tomorrow, a final exam the next day--"

"Parrish, you speak Latin like a second language. That's not the top of your stress list. Read as much of the book as you can and Sparknotes the rest. You're working at Boyd's tomorrow, right? Talk to him. Ask him to put you on desk duty or something. Even if he doesn’t, study between cars. Worst comes to worst, go home early and make up the quizzes after the final."

Adam blinked. When Ronan broke it down like that, things seemed simpler. Ronan stayed up late with him, soaking up all the stress in the room.

Weeks passed and Ronan still instilled himself in the corner of Adam's bed. One night, it got rough. Adam was tired, overworked, and in a pisspoor mood. This night, Ronan's biting comments lodged under his skin and the weight of having someone else in the room was suffocating. Finally, Adam had enough.

"Why the fuck are you here, Ronan?"

"What crawled up your ass and died, Parrish?"

Adam smacked his head on his desk and groaned.

"Ronan," Adam muttered. "Please. Please, just tell me why you're here so you can get what you want and leave." The room felt like a cavern. Empty and hollow and sounding like a thousand potential echoes.

"I love you," Ronan bit out, in the casual way only a Lynch could pull off while revealing his greatest secret. It was as if he didn't mean it. Or was trying like hell not to.

"What?" This time, the room felt like an unopened box, full of a thousand and one possibilities.

"Forget it, Parrish, I don't want to fuck things up for you."

"No, Ronan, what? Repeat what you just said."

Ronan rolled his eyes mightily and leaned back against Adam's wall. "I love you."

Adam sighed, standing. He approached Ronan like he was about to hit him and Ronan began to brace himself. Lynches never allowed people free punches, but Ronan wouldn't raise a hand toward Adam for anything.

Adam sat down across from Ronan, the bed dipping and creaking with the new weight, and they studied each other.

"Say it one more time."

Ronan did not allow himself to feel hope. Especially in matters concerning Adam Parrish. But for once in his fast-paced, car crash life, a small spark of something flared in his chest.

"I love you."

Adam leaned in. Ronan stood stock-still. Adam pressed his lips gently to Ronan's. For one horrible, nightmare moment, all Ronan could do was sit there, soft and pliable in front of Adam. Then, all at once, the NOx flooded through Ronan's veins and his engine was kicked into superspeed. He responded, enthusiastically, maybe too much so. Their teeth clacked awkwardly and they couldn't figure out the right angle to keep their noses, but it was the best kiss Ronan had ever been given (not that he'd been given all that many).

When they pulled away, Adam laughed softly, burying his head in Ronan's shoulder. Ronan reached out a hand to clasp gently at Adam's back, fingers roving over ever bump in Adam's spine, like he was counting, just to make sure it was real.

Ronan's car crash life may have been spinning out of control, but Adam just so happened to be a mechanic, so maybe, in some fanciful storybook way, things would work out.


End file.
